📚 Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success

Posted Feb 25, 2022 Updated Mar 23, 2024

By Adam 7 min read

About the book


Author:	Adam Grant
Year of release:	2013
Genre:	Self-Help, Relationships, Lifestyle, Business, Psychology
Pages:	204
Average WPM:	389
Date Started/Finished:	13-February-2022 to 24-February-2022
Time took:	4.5 Hours

Impressions

What I Liked About It: Gives solid advice about work environment; Clear idea set at the beginning of the book, he keeps it consistent; Structured well

How I Discovered It

Recommended by Ankur Warikoo in one of his videos¹.

Who Should Read It?

University students
Fresh graduates
Anyone who want’s to get better in a professional environment

Actionable Takeaways

Basic takeaway here is don’t be an asshole because you will lose in the end
Learned to be a giver without being a doormat

Top Quotes

We often stereotype givers as chumps and doormats, they turn out to be surprisingly successful

Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around them

Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon

Giving can be contagious

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

Speak softly, but carry a big stick.

Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might follow as a by-product.

We spend the majority of our waking hours at work. This means that what we do at work becomes a fundamental part of who we are

Summary + Notes

Chapter 1 - Good Returns

According to conventional wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common: motivation, ability, and opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need a combination of

Hard work
Talent
Luck

If you’re a taker, you help others strategically, when the benefits to you outweigh the personal costs.

If you’re a giver, you might use a different cost-benefit analysis: you help whenever the benefits to others exceed the personal costs.

According to research led by Yale psychologist Margaret Clark, most people act like givers in close relationships. In marriages and friendships, we contribute whenever we can without keeping score. But in the workplace, give and take becomes more complicated.

Givers are at a disadvantage: they make others better off but sacrifice their own success in the process.

We often stereotype givers as chumps and doormats, they turn out to be surprisingly successful.

Givers reverse the popular plan of succeeding first and giving back later, raising the possibility that those who give first are often best positioned for success later.

Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around them.

Giver success creates value, instead of just claiming it.

Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon

Successful givers have unique approaches to interactions in four key domains: (NICE)

Networking
Influencing
Collaborating
Evaluating

Chapter 2 - The Peacock and the Panda

Networks come with three major advantages:

Private information
Diverse skills
Power

Opposite of paranoia: pronoia. According to the distinguished psychologist Brian Little, pronoia is “the delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being, or saying nice things about you behind your back.” If you’re a giver, this belief may be a reality, not a delusion.

The takers were black holes. They sucked the energy from those around them. The givers were suns: they injected light around the organization. Givers created opportunities for their colleagues to contribute, rather than imposing their ideas and hogging credit for achievements. When they disagreed with suggestions, givers showed respect for the people who spoke up, rather than belittling them.

Takers accumulate large networks to look important and gain access to powerful people, and matchers do it to get favors, Rifkin does it to create more opportunities for giving.

“I’ll do this for you without expecting anything specific back from you, in the confident expectation that someone else will do something for me down the road.” - Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam

Giving can be contagious.

Chapter 3 - The Ripple Effect

Meyer summarizes his code of honor as

Show up
Work hard
Be kind
Take the high road

Quality. We need those people, like George, who aren’t afraid to say, “No, this isn’t good enough. We can do better.”

To effectively help colleagues, people need to step outside their own frames of reference.

Chapter 4 - Finding the Diamond in the Rough

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

Givers focus more on the interpersonal and organizational consequences of their decisions, accepting a blow to their pride and reputations in the short term in order to make better choices in the long term.

“Good givers are great getters; they make everybody better”

Chapter 5 - The Power of Powerless Communication

Speak softly, but carry a big stick.

Givers develop prestige in four domains of influence:

Presenting
Selling
Persuading
Negotiating

Psychologists call this the pratfall effect.

The Pratfall Effect states that people who are considered highly competent are found to be more likeable when they perform an everyday blunder than those who don’t.

Takers tend to use powerful speech: they’re assertive and direct. Givers tend to use more powerless speech, talking with tentative markers like these:

Hesitations: “well,” “um,” “uh,” “you know”
Hedges: “kinda,” “sorta,” “maybe,” “probably,” “I think”
Disclaimers: “this may be a bad idea, but”
Tag questions: “that’s interesting, isn’t it?” or “that’s a good idea, right?”
Intensifiers: “really,” “very,” “quite”

Advice seeking has four benefits:

Learning
Perspective taking
Commitment
Flattery

Advice seeking only works if it’s genuine.

Powerless communication can be far more powerful and effective than meets the ear.

Chapter 6 - The Art of Motivation Maintenance

Bill Gates argued at the World Economic Forum,

“there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest, and caring for others,”

Being otherish means being willing to give more than you receive, but still keeping your own interests in sight, using them as a guide for choosing when, where, how, and to whom you give.

When people know how their work makes a difference, they feel energized to contribute more.

Having a greater impact is one of the reasons why, counterintuitive as it might seem, giving more can actually help givers avoid burnout.

The more one gives, the better one feels; and the better one feels about it, the easier it becomes to give.

Surprising as it seems, people who give more go on to earn more.

Chapter 7 - Chump Change

The other counterintuitive combination of appearances and motives is the agreeable taker, otherwise known as a faker

Chapter 8 - The Scrooge Shift

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, although he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

Optimal distinctiveness: we look for ways to fit in and stand out. A popular way to achieve optimal distinctiveness is to join a unique group. Being part of a group with shared interests, identities, goals, values, skills, characteristics, or experiences gives us a sense of connection and belonging.

The more rare a group, value, interest, skill, or experience is, the more likely it is to facilitate a bond.

If many people personally believe in giving, but assume that others don’t, the whole norm in a group or a company can shift away from giving.

When people made their identity plans known to others, they were able to claim the identity without actually following through on the behavior.

Chapter 9 - Out of the Shadows

“Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might follow as a by-product.”

Can people succeed through instrumental giving, where the primary intent is getting? At the beginning of the book, I suggested that in the long term, the answer might be no.